This disclosure relates generally to apparatus for converting printed products. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to apparatus for producing personalized packaging.
In one conventional method of producing personalized packaging, printing and/or images are printed on sheet media, a two-dimensional package blank is then cut from the sheet media and the package blank is then formed into a three-dimensional package. The personalized packaging market requires production volumes that range from one piece to several thousand pieces. Many low cost ($1000-$50,000) folded carton cutting solutions offered by companies such as Graphtec, Esko Artwork, Gerber, etc. rely on manually fed X Y cutting tables or X Θ cutters, such as Graphtec Robo cutter, where the media is reciprocated in the process direction with nip rollers in conjunction with a cutting blade mounted on a cross process slide. While these cutters offer a low cost cutting solution, they require a dedicated operator to load media, start the cutter and unload media. This requirement for a dedicated operator is a barrier for small print shops with only 2-3 employees. While it may be possible to simply add a feeder onto an existing X Y or X Θ cutter, it is expected that the throughput of such a combination will be limited to 1-2 sheets per minute.
Conventional low end cutting plotters are designed very much like the HP pen plotters that were used for generating 2D CAD drawings before the advent of wide body ink jet printing. Such plotters require that the operator perform a significant portion of the media handling, from sheet insertion to sheet removal. One additional problem with the conventional cutter plotter equipment is that the cutting pen often catches on the sheet and prevents the sheet from dropping away from the plotter.